For the long history of this story, Philip’s ‘conversion’ of Simeon the Ethiopian Eunuch, has focused on the fact that broadly, Simeon is a Gentile. Luke’s gospel proclaimed in various ways that the good news would go out from Jerusalem into the world, to the Gentiles. So this story has been interpreted as a fulfillment of Luke’s promise of world-wide evangelization. And this is where interpreters have largely stayed. This is a story about evangelization of the gentiles.

Recently however, scholars have focused on the details that we know about Simeon. He was Ethiopian. Specifically, he was a black man. By simply making him a ‘gentile,’ the church has ignored the baptism (full inclusion) of a dark-skinned man. By acknowledging the ethnicity of Simeon, new vistas in interpreting and applying the gospel to racial divide and injustice open up. Was this Luke’s intention? I am not sure that Ethiopians were subject to bigotry by Romans or Jews. I do know that they were a people both far away and very different from Philip’s own culture. And so Luke did want the church to understand that the gospel was meant to bridge the gaps that divide cultures that are different from one another.

Simeon is also described as a Eunuch. As we discussed on Sunday, Eunuch was not just a term describing those who had been forcibly subjected to genital mutilation. It was also a term that was used to describe those who were born with various type of hermaphroditism. And some suggest it could be used to describe those who were same gender loving. Eunuch largely reflected all those who did not fit neatly into clear gender binaries. Historically they were mistrusted, abused, maligned and hated even as they were used by wealthy elites to manage the king’s harem or other house-hold affairs. The point however is clear. Philip welcomes one into the church who is not only very different of culture and skin tone, but who is also often rejected and mistreated because their gender identity was uncommon and outside the norm.

The fact of the matter is that for the most part, throughout the long history of this story, Simeon's race and gender identity have been ignored. They were not considered important details in discerning the meaning of the passage (despite the fact that Luke mentions that Simeon is a Eunuch five times!!!) The history of what has been ignored in this weeks story is just as important as the story itself. It is too easy to miss or ignore those who live on the margins. Luke brought the marginalized to the center of this story and still, for centuries, we've looked past Simeon's racial and gender identity. Which leaves me wondering why for so long, the implications of Simeon's race and gender identity have been largely ignored in the interpretation of this story? It leaves me wondering who it is that I/we ignore? Who is it that I do not see or hear in society today? Perhaps even most importantly, whom do we exclude because of our own discomfort with those whose lives do not conform to our own concepts of what is normal or familiar?